Lagatar24 Desk
Bengaluru, Oct 2: The Indian Space Research Organisation is looking into the possibilities of constructing a next-generation astronomy satellite, as indicated by a top official from the space agency. AstroSat, ISRO’s first mission dedicated to astronomy, was launched on September 28, 2015, with a five-year design life. It is still in working order.
AS Kiran Kumar, who as the then Chairman of ISRO led the mission team, and is presently serving as the chair of the top science committee at the space agency, said “It (AstroSat) is expected to last some more years. We can expect some more results to come which will be path-breaking”.
When asked about the odds of launching AstroSat-2, he said, “Not AstroSat-2. Next generation…thinking is going on…depending on how planning happens…follow-on to this (AstroSat) in a different manner are being looked at”.
Data from AstroSat is widely used for the study of numerous branches of astronomy, from galactic to inter-galactic, according to ISRO authorities, with users from all around the world.
Extreme-UV radiation was identified from a galaxy called AUDFs01, 9.3 billion light-years away from Earth, by the multi-wavelength space observatory, which has five distinct X-ray and ultraviolet instruments working in tandem.
A multinational team of astronomers led by Dr. Kanak Saha of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune discovered the finding, which was published in the journal ‘Nature Astronomy.’ Scientists from India, Switzerland, France, the United States, Japan, and the Netherlands were part of the team.
AstroSat has also seen rapid variability of high energy (especially >20keV) X-ray emission from a black hole system for the first time, according to officials.
Dr Kiran Kumar said , “AstroSat has been a very successful mission and it has produced results which are globally acclaimed. Large number of papers have also been published”.
